Buying voluntary offsets can and should be a regular part of the casual environmentalist’s lifestyle, just like recycling or carpooling. In this series, we’ll explore the voluntary carbon market, how to participate and why now is the time for action.

Deloitte has centered on two key areas where it can leverage its strengths as a business service provider to have a positive impact for the long term on the communities in which it operates: education and workforce development.

Monsanto presents a series on what it means to be “Climate Smart” in the world of agriculture. The series will cover the role of climate change in impacting food security, agriculture, weather patterns and society at large.

In this editorial series we’ll explore the role of business in supporting access to education and opportunities, and consider the best way to prepare a generation of leaders who understand the importance of sustainable development.

So, your company wants to reduce its landfill waste. Now what? As sustainability reaches top of mind for investors and customers, more companies are beginning to tackle waste in their supply chains in order to boost their green cred.

An event series whose mission it is to bring together companies from around the world to discuss climate change and how they can work together to address it most impactfully. Now building sponsorship and registration. [INFO HERE]

For NI17 we’re creating an experience unlike any conference you’ve been to before. We’ll help you map out your Path to Purpose to turn your passion into a purposeful career by gaining tangible skills and actionable insights. [INFO HERE]

This week, automaker Nissan announced a two-way charging system that will allow the new all-electric Nissan Leaf to not only charge up, but also to reverse the flow of electricity to allow the car to power the home for brief periods during power outages or shortages.

Considering the recent calamity in Japan’s power generation system, and the numerous blackouts that occurred in the aftermath, this capability will certainly be appreciated. Meanwhile, energy saving measures in the wake of the disaster have reduced Tokyo’s electric demand by about a third.

The Leaf’s lithium-ion battery can hold 24 kWh when fully charged, enough to power an average Japanese home for two days. For a typical American home, that would last less than a day. Of course, the consumer needs to be careful not to run the batteries all the way down to make sure that there is enough juice left in the car should it be needed. This system can be used as a money-saving energy storage unit, if the batteries are charged overnight when the cost of power is low, and then used in the house during the day when power costs are higher. This system will be available in Japan in 2012 and in other locations as soon as the design can be localized. The announcement coordinates well with other recent announcements of more forthcoming electric vehicles.

Denmark’s program, which was announced in June, allows users to not only power their homes, but also to sell excess power back into the grid. An EV owner could theoretically make up to $10,000 over the life of the car. The technology is being provided by US manufacturer Nuvve, which chose Denmark as the best location to pilot their vehicle-to-grid based on Denmark’s enthusiastic embrace of both electric cars and renewable energy.

According to the company’s website:

Nuvve’s proprietary ‘Vehicle to Grid’ or ‘V2G’ Aggregation solution transforms electric vehicles from simple loads on the electric grid into dispatchable energy storage resources by enabling the vehicle to send excess energy stored in its battery back to the grid upon request. The aggregation of hundreds of electric vehicles allows Nuvve to participate in ancillary service markets with power capacity comparable to traditional generators.

Nuvve’s solution includes both hardware and software as well as the services required to connect the vehicle to the electric utility infrastructure.

Forecasts from Zpryme project that by 2020 there will be over one million V2G vehicles on the road. They predict a $43.8 billion market at that time, which is going to take a lot of jobs to create and provide a lot of opportunities for innovation.

This growth will be a boon to both the economy and the environment, since this additional capacity, when combined with new agile generating equipment will go a long way to facilitate the widespread use of renewables that should make a dramatic positive impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I only hope that it’s not too late.

RP Siegel is the co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails, the first in a series covering the human side of various sustainability issues including energy, food, and water. Like airplanes, we all leave behind a vapor trail. And though we can easily see others’, we rarely see our own.

RP Siegel, author and inventor, shines a powerful light on numerous environmental and technological topics. His work has appeared in Triple Pundit, GreenBiz, Justmeans, CSRWire, Sustainable Brands, PolicyInnovations, Social Earth, 3BL Media, ThomasNet, Huffington Post, Strategy+Business, Mechanical Engineering, and engineering.com among others . He is the co-author, with Roger Saillant, of Vapor Trails, an adventure novel that shows climate change from a human perspective. RP is a professional engineer - a prolific inventor with 52 patents and President of Rain Mountain LLC a an independent product development group. RP recently returned from Abu Dhabi where he traveled as the winner of the 2015 Sustainability Week blogging competition.Contact: bobolink52@gmail.com